


Pragmatic

by Fectless



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Coming of Age, Family Issues, Gen, Spirits, Sporadic Updates, Unreliable Narrator, War, War Crimes, Waterbending, katara-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26194471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fectless/pseuds/Fectless
Summary: In which Katara is not the optimistic girl from the South Pole whose heart shows on her shirtsleeves. Because losing a parent is hard enough, and having the whole tribe blame you for it is worse.(Tags will be updated as the story progresses.)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	1. Prologue

Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then the Fire Nation attacked, and everything changed.

We of the Southern Water Tribe did not have a fortress like our brethren in the North did. So we sent word to our brothers, asking for help. And for all that they still regarded us as a colony of theirs, for all the taxes we paid and warriors we sent when they had need, they abandoned us. And our trade partners from the Earth Kingdoms could barely defend themselves, let alone send aid to a nation at the end of the world.

So we fought alone.

Though water outs fire, fire melts ice. And so it was that the great city of the South was melted, and its children sent back to La- only those from the smaller villages survived the first wave. But years of starvation and brutal raids followed, our benders stolen and our warriors and their families killed- our culture desecrated, until the Fire Nation regarded us as less than spoiled chum in their fish tea. In a last ditch effort to put an end to the war, my father and the rest of the South's men headed north two years ago, leaving my brother and I to watch over the remaining few of our tribe.

Sometimes, Gran-Gran told stories of the time before the war. She spoke of booming trade and plentiful food and the airbenders our people had traded with before their destruction and the avatar- the master of all four elements; the only one who could restore balance to the world. But she has lost hope. I can’t blame her.

I still believe that the avatar will return and bring balance to the world.

I also believe that the South will have starved to death long before he does.


	2. The Boy in the Iceberg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara loses her temper for the first time in ages.

Katara stands in the canoe, opposite of her brother, one gloveless hand being held above the water heedless of the chill. They are fishing right now, or trying to anyway; Sokka is scaring all the fish away.

“Mm, we're having fish tonight,” she hears Sokka say. The words echo in the quiet for a long moment, so she shoots him a glare. “I can already taste it.”

They say, 'don't count your fish before you catch them' for a reason, Sokka, she thinks. But she has long given up correcting her brother, having learned that the energy is better spent elsewhere. Like on the chores that she is neglecting to do so she can make sure that the tribe eats tonight. Right now, she could be tidying their living space, or laundering their clothes, or fixing the village wall... Or she could be fixing the tear in the village's one fishing net- the tear that made this trip necessary in the first place.

So she doesn't correct Sokka, even if she does think he needs to be checked. Instead, she bends the water around a fish that he has missed, carefully making the orb that she lifts from the sea smaller and smaller, and then dropping the fish and its barely-there swimming space into the boat. Katara has done this a few times now, so there are quite a few fish in the boat- and quite a bit of water.

Her brother notices the increasing wetness around his ankles. Which means I have to fix his shoes now. Joy, Katara thinks as Sokka mutters something about patching up the canoe- something about having her patch up the canoe.

Suddenly, all is still and Sokka is doing more talking and posing than fishing and Katara needs to get out of the boat before she pushes him in to the water and leaves him there until his lips turn blue. “Okay,” she says. Her voice is calm despite the anger rushing through her veins and she is proud of that. “That's enough for today. Let's head back. Now.”

“What?! But we haven't gotten any-” he turns around and sees the small school swimming in their boat- “...fish.” For a moment, Katara thinks that that will be the end of it, and she's so proud of her brother. She thinks he's finally growing up, finally going to help her and the village, not just build look out towers and pretend he's a warrior. Then he mutters, “Stupid magic water. Should've known when my feet got wet- this canoe doesn't even have holes.”

And she is so disappointed.

But he turns the canoe around and steers them towards home and she doesn't say anything.

That night, they have fish tea for dinner, with the promise of enough leftovers for breakfast. So Katara puts aside the iciness clinging to her heart and instead fills the hollow of her stomach.

Tomorrow will be better, she tells herself. Just as she has for years.

They are out fishing again.

Yesterday, they had gotten enough that the village wouldn't starve, not just yet, but the stores of seaweed and blubber and seal jerky are too low to last the rest of the winter (and they haven't been able to find any seaprunes or seacucumbers this year, and Katara has no clue what they're going to do when the harsh summer months arrive and the sun disappears and the wolves are as hungry as the village is).

Yesterday, one of the children had fallen into the water. He is a strong swimmer- one with bright blue eyes and a love of playing in the snow that reminds Katara so much of herself when she was younger that she thinks he might grow up to be a bender too- so he didn't drown (La doesn't drown his favored sons and daughters, Katara knows, he only welcomes them home when they have already lived their lives and given up their spirits) and he has yet to fall ill. But Aput did fall into La's domain, and the commotion made it so that the women did not repair the net, and Katara was too tired yesterday to have done it after completing her chores and eating supper (and then helping with the children and doing some of Sokka’s chores).

So Katara is out fishing with her brother again.

She raises her hand, pulling up a fish- the first one that they've seen all day. “Sokka,” she says, the anger of yesterday washed away by the excitement she feels from seeing the size of this fish- it might be enough to feed everyone, all by itself! Katara just needs him to move closer to the edge of the canoe so she can fit it somewhere.

“Shh!” her brother whisper-shouts. He doesn't turn around, but even that doesn't phase her. Instead he raises his spear. “I think I see one. It's not getting away from me this time.”

“But, Sokka, I-”

“Not now, Katara.”

“If you could just-”

Somehow, the blunt end of his spear manages to jab her in the stomach. She loses both her balance and the fish, and the canoe capsizes as she falls into the water. The two siblings flip the boat over and haul themselves out of the cold water, but the damage is done: the fish have been startled into hiding and Sokka has lost his spear, besides; and Katara can only bend out so much of the water clinging to their furs.

Sokka starts to say something, but the boat is caught in a current and they're too busy trying to dodge ice floes to do much talking other than panicked shouting.

They end up stranded, their canoe smashed to pieces.

A wet, hungry and frustrated Sokka yells, “I knew I shouldn't have brought you along! Leave it to you to mess everything up!”

Katara has had years to practice burying her temper.

But Katara is also hungry and soaked and frustrated and there's only so much a girl can take. So she lets her anger out. “You are the most sexist, immature, nut-brained-! I'm embarrassed to be related to you!” She hears her bones crack from the force she swings her arms with.

Sokka cowers away from her, pointing nervously at something. “Uh, Katara-”

“No! I'm not finished! Every time we've gone out looking for food for the past year, all you ever do is pose and make funny faces at yourself whenever you see your reflection!”

“K-Katara!” The little patch of ice they're on rocks dangerously.

“And another thing- I do all the worst chores while you're running around the village playing warrior instead of helping out, including the laundry- have you ever smelled your dirty socks?”

Sokka's eyes go wide. “Katara, settle d-”

“Let me tell you: they. Are. Not. PLEASANT!”

“Katara!” Sokka lunges forward and grabs her as a huge wave rises out of the water and pushes their little patch of ice far, far away from where it was.

She sits up as soon as the bobbing slows and her bright blue eyes widen when she sees the cause. The entire ice shelf that had once formed a canyon around them is gone. “What...?”

“That's it!” Sokka spits out, pushing away from her. “You officially gone from weird to freakish, Katara!”

She freezes. “You mean I did that?”

He stares at her with hard eyes and Katara isn't sure she wants to hear what he has to say- she's seen that look on him, on the whole tribe, before. But she doesn't have to. Just as he opens his mouth again, a giant dome of glowing ice pushes its way through the water and through the glaring light, Katara can make out the form of a small person- a child- opening their eyes.

She remembers Aput’s incident, the sight of small bodies sinking through the water- remembers once, when she had been outside the village, when she had stepped through ice and nearly drowned, alone.

“He's alive- we have to help him!” Katara grabs the whale-bone club that her brother carries strapped to his back and hops over to the glowing sphere. If several smaller floes move to make her path smoother, she does not notice. (Her brother does, but is more afraid of the being causing the light than his sister's subconscious use of her magic water; especially since the water isn't being destructive this time.)

She strikes the ice once, feels it rebuff the club.

“Katara, get back here!” her brother shouts. “We don't know what that thing is!” She ignores him.

Strikes twice, with more focus, and feels the ice begin to crack.

“Katara, no!” He reaches for her.

Thrice, and air billows out, pushing the siblings away from the sphere as it cracks and falls apart. A beam of bright light reaches for the heavens and a blinded Katara drops the club and mutters, “Father...”

(She misses the startled, squint-eyed look Sokka aims at her. He hasn’t realized that she’s not talking about Hakoda.)

A figure is cut against the light, standing atop what remains of the once-sphere. Then the light dies and Katara finds herself freed from Sokka’s arms, rushing forward to catch a small boy before his head hits the ice.

Sokka rushes forward, his club in hand, and makes to prod the child with it. Katara aims a look over her shoulder and he freezes, letting her gently lower the boy to the ice.

The child lets out a groan at this. Hazel-gray eyes open with a gasp and she frowns. Is he hurt?

“I...I need- need to ask… you...” she hears the boy whisper. He is thin and his colorful clothes thinner. The dullness of his eyes contrasts unfavorably against the brightness of his warrior’s tattoo, and Katara panics.

Hypothermia, she realizes. There’s no way she and Sokka can save him, not out here. He was in the ice too long. Her heart sinks. “Yes...?” she prompts. If she keeps him talking, will he live longer?

“Please, come closer.” She leans in, heart constricting. His face brightens suddenly and he pushes himself upright with too little force, “Will you go penguin-sledding with me?”

She blinks once, “Uh.” What? Penguin-sledding? Blinks again.

But the boy doesn't wait for an answer, raising to his feet and asking, “What's going on here?”

The question of the day.

That seems to kick-start Sokka though. He gets into what could be a warrior's stance as the boy rubs his head, brandishing his club. “You tell us! How'd you get in the ice- and why aren't you frozen?”

Katara frowns at this, wondering the same thing, but the boy just waves aside her brother's questions and looks around, still obviously befuddled. “I-”

A rumbling groan interrupts and Katara goes still. The strange child (because nothing about him seems to make sense), however, jumps into action, clambering over what remains of the icy dome and exclaiming, “Appa!”

What follows is an introduction to a fluffy monster, a sneeze, and a giant wad of smelly snot sticking to her brother. Katara watches all of this with a blank face and can only think, Koh's face, this day can't get any weirder.

Then, as Sokka attempts to rub the smelly green stuff off onto the ice, the boy says, “Don't worry, it'll wash out.”

And Katara scowls. Great. More smelly laundry that no one else would dare touch.

The boy pets the fluffy monster. “So... You guys live around here?”

Sokka stops trying to clean himself off, reaching for his club again and spouting off paranoid theories about the boy being a spy. Personally, Katara thinks he's more likely to be a waterbender than some Fire Nation brat- especially with how innocent he seems- but she is worried that the Fire Navy is going to show up to investigate the light show, so she rushes through the rest of the introductions. Aang (turns out that that's his name, which seems to be neither Water Tribe nor Fire Nation in origin) sneezes, flying several feet upwards while doing so.

Katara was wrong. The day can get weirder. “You're an airbender.”

“Yep.”

“I must have midnight sun madness.” Sokka decides he's had enough for the day and insists on going home and leaving Aang behind. Then he remembers that the canoe is gone.

“Appa and I can give you guys a lift.”

Katara doesn't even blink. With how the day is turning out, she's half certain that the seaprunes in the soup last night were bad and she's going to wake up with a migraine and a bad stomachache. “We'd love a ride. Thank you.”

Sokka protests the whole time, even as Katara sees him climbing onto the bison.

“Hold on tight! Appa, yip-yip.” Of course, the bison can't really fly- which prompts Sokka's sarcasm, and the look that Aang gives her while she directs him to the village is creepy, even by full-stomach dream standards. 

Katara wonders, still not quite sure if she's awake, if Aang knows the avatar, seeing as he's an airbender. But she hasn't been one to ask questions for quite some time, so she just lets the ride back happen in silence.

By the time they get back, nearly everyone is sleeping. The few who aren't asleep yet glance at the boy from the corners of their eyes and disappear into their tents and igloos after frowning at Katara.

“Again?” those frowns seem to ask.

She forgets to remind herself that things will get better before she retires. She doesn't sleep well that night.


	3. Tribe

She can almost hear Aang's heartbeat as she passes by his tent when “morning” has come. She can almost feel the way his blood rushes through his veins as though trying to flee from a pack of arctic wolves and realizes that he is in the midst of a nightmare.

(How can Sokka not hear him, sitting vigil just outside the tent as he is?)

(She very, very carefully ignores the fact that it is his blood and not his breathing that has alerted her.)

(No, she must have heard his breathing. Surely she cannot hear Aang's blood. No one can hear blood from as far away as she is.)

Katara leans down, reaches out a hand- blood, pulsing through his veins and heart beating a frantic tattoo in his chest, so different from the smooth, pooling rhythm that hums from the flesh under the blue arrows decorating his skin- And then she pulls back and, instead, says, “Aang, wake up,” until the boy wakes with a gasp and wild eyes. She has had enough experience with nightmares to know not to bring attention to his. “Get ready; everyone is waiting to meet you.”

She can't help but stare at the markings that he has adorned himself with as he pulls his strange, colorful shirt back on. She can still almost feel the humming of energy coming from it. Katara has never felt such a thing from another person before.

“Aang,” Katara says the next morning when everyone has come to stare at the tattooed boy, “this is the entire village. Everyone, this is Aang.” Perhaps some would be embarrassed to introduce her tribe of survivors to this airbender- this child out of time who is so full of hope and laughter and light- the way she does.

But instead of the small, unsmiling, underfed group she knows Aang sees (she can tell he does, from the look in his hazel-gray eyes), Katara sees a people that will outlast even the worst of wars. She sees Sara, who has burn-scars under her clothes from a past raid and nightmares that won't cease, but still sings lullabies for frightened younglings (but never for Katara) and tells them to not be afraid. She sees Gran-Gran, who talks with a different accent from everyone else and refuses to speak of her life before she turned up here alone and broken-hearted, pregnant with Katara's mother. She sees Hana, whose two-year-old twins have never met their father, but still know what it is to always feel loved. Katara sees the scars of her people, and the strength they have to move past them.

(She ignores the scars they have given her.)

So when the look clears from Aang's eyes and he greets her people, Katara smiles.

That his eyes clear up does not mean that the tribe reciprocates his action, though. In fact, they take a collective step away from him.

(Katara is the one to introduce him, the one who has decided that they will offer him and his giant, fuzzy snot-ball of a pet shelter for however long it takes the beast to be able to fly again- if it can fly. Her endorsement is a strike against him.)

The boy notices. “Uh... Why are they all looking at me like that? Did Appa sneeze on me?”

“Well, no one has seen an airbender in a hundred years,” Gran-Gran, with her purple parka and hair-loops, steps forward and deadpans. “We thought they were extinct.” Unspoken goes the knowledge that no one really believes that he is an airbender, and that the last visitors they’d had were raiders who- were raiders.

Katara bites back a sigh at the hostile faces of her tribe and the hurt look on Aang's face. What are you supposed to say to that?

“Extinct?”

“What is this anyway? A weapon?”

Thank the spirits for Sokka. And wow, that feels weird to think.

Sokka makes a grab for Aang's staff, and the airbending boy does something to it, opening it like one of the fans that the Earth Kingdom traders once brought. He shows them airbending tricks until he crashes into the lump of snow that Sokka calls a watchtower.

And then Gran-Gran tells her to get back to her chores and Katara feels something that might be mild disappointment, but she understands that his presence means there is another mouth to feed- that she is responsible for this strange boy since she brought him to the village, and she is content enough to simply glance at the way he plays with the children from time to time. (A big part of that contentment is the way she manages to avoid her brother, avoid talking about yesterday, all day.)

When everyone is called for midday meal, Aang shares stories, eating very little and then returning to his bison.

“Where did you find him?” Gran-Gran asks after they clean up. It is just the two of them, as Sokka is still convinced that Aang is a Fire Nation spy and has decided to keep a close eye on the boy again.

Katara pauses in the middle of scrubbing a dish. She's really not sure how to say this. Oh, that. I just had a breakdown and my bending went haywire and completely destroyed everything above the surface within a half-mile radius. And he was trapped in a glowing sphere of ice that had been part of the no-longer-there canyon but managed to be perfectly fine after I broke him out. No biggie, Gran-Gran.

“We...Well, that is, he was...,” she stalls.

Gran-Gran, with a wisdom born of experience, says, “I will not like what you have to say, will I?”

“Probably not.” They're silent for a little while. Then Katara fists her hands and stares at the walls. “Gran-Gran, I think-” Her voice breaks. “I think I might be dangerous.”

Her grandmother doesn't reply. The silence feels damning and Katara hastens to fill it.

“I've always known that I can do things that Sokka can't- and I-I know that you and Dad don't want me practicing my bending,” Katara knows why, too, which is what makes this next part so hard, “but I have been.”

“Katara.”

“I only do it when I have to, Gran-Gran, like if we really need freshwater, or if someone falls in the ocean, or if Sokka can't catch any fish-”

Gran-Gran frowns, knowing that her grandson isn't the best fisherman (and that he falls into La's domain. Often). “That-”

“But I don't think it matters!” Katara throws her hands up, and suddenly a portion of their snowy wall is solid ice. Gran-Gran draws in a sharp breath. “See? I wasn't even trying to do that just now! And yesterday...” Katara falls silent, unable to continue without prompting.

Gran-Gran's hands clamp down on Katara's shoulders, turning the girl to face her. “Katara, what happened?” The old woman's eyes are wide.

It is in a small voice that Katara says, “I lost my temper.” And then the words pour out like the spreading of cracks in thin patches of ice. Her words are running together and she's crying but she can't stop herself. “I know that I'm not supposed to bend, Gran-Gran, but what if not bending makes it worse?”

Gran-Gran is quiet and her hands fall from Katara's shoulders. The girl looks up at her grandmother through teary eyes and flinches, because she knows what the old woman is thinking; she knows because she, too, is thinking of the raids and the burning bodies and swelling stomachs and drowned children and people who are just gone with only the scents of soot and blood and broken hearts left in their place. Gran-Gran doesn't need to say anything, because Katara can see it in her eyes: the older woman is accusing her, just like so many did when her mother was lost.

Katara stands frozen for one long moment, but then she runs.

It's dangerous outside the village, even during the day. Even during the winter months when the weather is calm and the sunlight never fades there are predators that would not hesitate to eat a human- to hunt one down like an arctic hare and feast on manflesh. But Katara isn't thinking of the tigerseals or arctic wolves or feral polar dogs.

She just needs to run.

* * *

A short time after her mother's death, Katara had done this very same thing. No one in the village could stand to look at her, no one wanted her help with anything and sometimes they forgot that she was just a child and used more than simply harsh words to scare her away. So she taken to spending time outside the village. One day during that horrible spring, she had gotten lost.

It was common for the village to move after raids- and after the one that stole Katara's mother, the village had done so; they couldn't stand the memories that the sooty snow carried, despite the danger of the coming summer. It was during that short period between the men scouting for a decent location and the tribe carrying out their belongings to settle wherever the warriors chose that Katara had slipped away. She was young then, nearing eight summers, and the last time the village had moved, she hadn't even thought to dream of her third longnight.

So Katara had slipped away, knowing that the grownups were preparing to do something important but not knowing what, afraid to even stick around and see- never mind asking- because she knew that it was her fault. And when the tribe moved, they did not send someone to look for her.

She spent the day sledding with the penguins and watching wild polar dogs from a distance and not playing with the snow and ice as she had only weeks before. Katara, for the first time since her mother's death, spent the day feeling... not quite okay, but very close to it. And then, when she felt the sun trade places with the moon as it always did in preparation for the coming summer's longnight, she returned to the village.

And she neither saw nor heard anyone.

She ran through the streets, eyes wide but unseeing, until she found the imprint of where her family's home had stood on the packed ice and snow. For a moment she stared at the empty ground. Then she lifted her eyes and finally saw that only a few structures- the permanent ones like the village meeting hall and the food storehouse- remained.

Her heart skipped a beat as she realized what had happened: everyone had left and they had not thought to take her with them.

But she had no tears left; they had all been spent on her mother. So she did not cry. Instead Katara recalled words that her father had spoken to her brother. “Remember, Sokka, that a warrior always observes and follows the tracks that their prey has made...” There had been more to it, something about working together like the arctic wolves, and something else about tigerseals and traps and thin ice, but she only really remembered that first bit. And something Gran-Gran had said about blessings and spirits and music.

She figured she could do that- follow the tracks her village had made as they left behind this place of blood and tears; if her dad thought Sokka could track when he was the age she was now, then she could do it too. And if music was supposed to help, she could sing.

“Father La and Mother Tui,” she murmured as darkness grew. Her heart stuttered as she heard the arctic wolves begin calling to one another. She took a steadying breath, “F-Father La and Mother Tui, listen now, I beseech thee...” She chanted the words of the children’s song a little off-key and a little too quietly, but she sang the one verse she knew the over and over, feeling a sort of pull in her bones that lead her northeast-wards. She found footprints, and a few dropped items that she carefully picked up, but no wolves.

By the time the moon had fully risen, she saw the outlines of smoke from cooking fires.

She dropped the items by the new central fire and went in search of her father and brother and grandmother.

(No one had even realized that she’d been left behind. Or, if they had, the surprise on their faces reaffirmed what she already knew. They hadn’t expected her to come back.)

The village moves again, several times, before the men leave for the Earth Kingdoms. She is always out of the village when they do. She always finds them by the high moon. After a while they stop pretending to be surprised.

* * *

Now, Katara runs and runs and only when she feels she will collapse and never rise again does she slow enough to take in her surroundings.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everyone! This story is being edited and transferred over, so if it’s slightly different from what you see on tumblr, please don’t be alarmed.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
